Therefore it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Muslim Student Union chapter at the University of Southern California (USC) acts in accordance with its sister chapters, and until recently hosted a violent quote in the “compendium” of hadiths on the USC Muslim Students Association page. The quote advocates massacring Jews as a pathway of redemption for Muslims, and reads as follows:

Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him.

The David Horowitz Freedom Center worked with the Simon Wiesenthal Center to draft a letter to Alan Casden, a USC trustee, about the “hadith of hate,” as it is often called. Disturbed that a call for genocide should be on the USC server, Casden contacted Provost Chrysostomos Nikias to express his concern. Nikias investigated the matter and sent Casden the following letter:

The passage you cited is truly despicable and I share your concerns about its being on the USC server. We did some investigations and I have ordered the passage removed.

The passage in the hadith that you brought to our attention violates the USC Principles of Community, and it has no place on a USC server.

The University of Southern California, a private university, has strict Principles of Community which state, in part: “No one has the right to denigrate another human being on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, etc. We will not tolerate verbal or written abuse, threats, harassment, intimidation, or violence against person or property.” No student group other than the Muslim Students Association has posted any kind of material, religious or otherwise, calling for the destruction of a race or group.

USC’s decision to remove the hadith from the school’s server marks the first time that an American university has recognized that the Muslim Students Association’s agenda involves the promotion of ethnic hatred. It is also the first time that an administrator has acted to remove “despicable” material.

A statement issued by the Muslim Student Union at USC suggested that the hadith was being taken out of context and called the school’s decision to remove it from the website “unprecedented and unconscionable.” The Muslim Student Union accused the USC administration of practicing unfair censorship. However, following the controversy with the Danish cartoons, Muslim students called for censorship and protested at several universities, including UC Irvine, when the cartoons were unveiled in an academic seminar. The protests included MSA students from various universities, including USC.

Allah’s Apostle said, “You (i.e., Muslims) will fight with the Jews till some of them will hide behind stones. The stones will (betray them) saying, ‘O ‘Abdullah (i.e., slave of Allah)! There is a Jew hiding behind me; so kill him.’”

Volume 4, Book 52, Number 177:

Narrated Abu Huraira:

Allah’s Apostle said, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.”